


Always Searching for Another Medium

by yearofjohnlock



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Love Confessions, M/M, Post His Last Vow, Post Mary, Sherlock Plays the Violin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 19:13:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7001653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yearofjohnlock/pseuds/yearofjohnlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John sleepily walks downstairs to the sound of Sherlock composing a song.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always Searching for Another Medium

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this format works for people, I wanted to make the text flowy so I couldn't break it into much smaller pieces.  
> Follow me on tumblr @yearofjohnlock :)

John wasn’t sure why he was awake. 

There was a very soft violin playing from downstairs, so John thought it’d be a good time to get a glass of water. He got up, and as soon as he stood, he was lost in thought. Why was his heart racing? What time was it? Why does it feel like he’s calling me? He surveyed his room, sighing as he recognized how his boxes were folded and tucked into the corner, having been unpacked for two months and yet still not binned. He scanned a few feet to the right and noticed his open and not-yet packed luggage that he’d borrowed from Sherlock for their upcoming trip to Sussex. This made John bite his lip in a smile. He pivoted on his foot to descend the stairs to the kitchen.

**~**

Sherlock was playing and struggling with a rather long piece on his violin, which seemed to avoid repetitive melodies and overly sweetened high notes. As he heard his flatmates feet approaching the kitchen, he swung around and stopped playing.

John walked over beside him and rested an elbow on the countertop. Sherlock followed his movement, turning his body and eyes as John padded across the room.

 

'Bravo,' he said quietly and with a smirk. To this, Sherlock made an eye contact with a brilliant smile but said nothing. John could feel himself light up inside. 'Composing again, this early?'

'Sorry if I woke you.'

'No, er, no. It’s alright.' John said, still feeling like he and Sherlock were stepping around one another since he moved back in. 'What was it for? Anything in particular?' He mentally winced at the thought of his wedding. Even on his wedding day, he was dutifully in the audience to the amazing man that is Sherlock Holmes.

‘It’s erm, you. I compose pieces in the same way some sketch or jot down notes.’ Sherlock replied, surprisingly sheepish, though he tried to brush off the subject with a hand wave.

‘Right, so how’s this me?’ John tred lightly – though he always sounded patronisingly impatient (defense mechanism for always being patronised) – because he genuinely wanted to know how he could be played like a song. His heart was really waking up now. 

Sherlock, naturally frustrated that John didn’t glean meaning from what he said, continued, ‘well, John, some doodle or paint their surroundings or funny faces. I make things,’ he paused to clear his throat, ‘and, er, people into music.’ He exhaled from thinking he was finished with his explanation, but then pressed one more detail out to John’s (always) confused face: ‘and this, here, that I am composing, is you.’

John pursed his mouth to strangle his smile. ‘Well, let’s hear it then.’ John felt a lot less playful, though, as if he was asking for a secret to be told. The two men both knew this. John broke his pause, ‘can I hear it, Sherlock?’

**~**

Sherlock made his mouth into a straight line and lifted his violin. When it was under his chin, he started to offer a disclaimer, 'John, keep in mind–,' he stopped. 'Well I don’t know.' They both giggled for a second and he began playing. The song was passionate, loud, but soft, smooth, nothing rapid, but drawn out, full sounds. It built into a few crescendos and something John – never the music analyst – interpreted as sadness.

//  
Didn’t matter if it did quite sound like a careful doodle or if it was ever played for anyone else. This song was for him, it was the only song, more than music. Sherlock is the same, more than a flatmate, a detective, a man. Of course they loved each other. Of course. What they hadn’t said or faced or navigated was the other thing. 

 

Knowing that you love someone, even would kill or die for someone is one thing. That is a bond that a lot of the types of brave men that John knew had in their lives. But beyond that bond is what really takes up space in a room with these men. That which goes unmentioned because it has no words. Something that Sherlock is silenced and humbled by and which John searches to find evidence for anywhere else, to believe it exists. They live for each other. Brace themselves through terrible times when memories take over more sensory perception than current reality, when the most apparent way out is quick and clear. They have lived through grieving – real and imagined. They wake up for each other, to come out and drink tea and read the papers and work together. 

Last, they wear this, the two-of-us feeling, but it feels like there is nothing in the world to fill the final gaps that prevent them from fully fusing. They are certainly, without knowing it, each superhuman to everyone else in their lives. So, certainly, they love in the same infinite way.  
And here, Sherlock has composed John into wordless meaning and in that moment things started to feel more complete and communicable. 

 

John and Sherlock both often privately think that the physical distance they keep in their friendship is what prevents it from evolving or feeling whole. They also both privately think that it has less to do with their own pining and more to do with the constant anxiety over the time they might have left. John sees Sherlock, the man who tests his mortality, and Sherlock sees John, the man that ultimately looks for a woman to calm his soldier drive, to busy his hands outside of London crime. Neither of them were right anymore.

//

Sherlock’s song seemed to taper off in sound as he braved making eye contact with John again. John stood from the stool in the kitchen and walked over cautiously, hands out in front of him. Sherlock wasn’t quite sure at all what John was aiming for. John hardly knew more than he.  
He pulled the bow out of Sherlock’s right hand and placed it on the countertop. He was moving quite slow, like he was tempting to gain the trust of an agitated horse. He wrapped his fingers around Sherlock’s hand and the neck of the violin, lowering those down to Sherlock’s sides.  
Again, he moved his hands out a little too far in front of him as though they were operating his body before his brain. Before touching Sherlock again, or even breaking into the last foot of space between them, he flicked his eyes around his face.

 

Sherlock looked down at him, initially made vulnerable by sharing his music and then by the first touches, soon became utterly calm in the feeling of being watched. John was a very good doctor and soldier and this always nestled Sherlock into the idea that he must really know bodies and people and what it means to be truly safe. Sherlock’s mouth hung a little open, enjoying being scanned and clearly wondered about.

 

It was John still buzzing around his face with loving eyes, though, that made Sherlock break his performed neutrality and transform into a warm invitation. John placed his one hand on Sherlock’s neck and the other on his chest and after two seconds, they met in the middle, noses first. This was rather important. It felt more important that they feel each other’s breath before anything else. Before anything else, they were alive together. With their experiences combined in the same intimate pairing, the life of it all was so much more forefront than other satiated desires. Their commingled breath reminded the other of their permanence.

But right after companionship, comes their deep, confusing, profound love. And with the former assured, they immediately pushed into each other’s lips. Always linked in a powerful way, their kiss was unsurprisingly evenly matched. This is how John shows Sherlock and how Sherlock shows John how real and now and alive they are. You can get your roots late in life.  
John is so bad with words and, really, so was Sherlock. The detective always spoke quickly as if he was trying to ensure everyone that if there was a realization, a deduction - he thought of it first. But next to John he was '... Good.' and '... Sorry.'

 

Finally, they had a way to say things without words; more gaps were filled. It couldn’t fill every need to define or explain or name, but the fact that they both knew that did the work itself.  
Sherlock grabbed the sides of John’s head, his fingertips reaching up into his hair, and placed their foreheads together. They are both out of breath. 'I love you. I love you so much.' He kisses John’s closed eyes while John raises his hands to place over Sherlock’s, who continues, 'I love you so much.' His tears start to roll out of his eyes and there was no stopping them as they poured. He sighs out a breath he’d been holding for years. A breath and anxiety he’d replaced with smoke.

John pulled his head down for another kiss – not as answer but as comfort – and now he’s crying, too. More controlled and laughed out than Sherlock’s. 'I love you. I’ve al–' Sherlock muffles this with his lips. They are both holding the sides of eachother’s heads, inches apart, just looking. Each looking at who they belong to.


End file.
